An Architect Builds With an Eye Toward Past and Future

While much of Greenwich Village is awash in new developments with undulating glass façades, one project is fusing the brownstone tradition with loft-like interiors and a high-tech gimmick.The new seven-story brownstone at 224 E. 14th St. is meant to look like the building that stood in its place since 1868 and, from the outside, it does — that is, until part of its façade folds away.Two of the building’s units have entire exterior walls that mechanically rise up like a garage door. Tilting and sliding across the ceiling of the room within, they leave the room completely exposed, as if by a gigantic, screenless window. A first-floor garden wall and the penthouse terrace wall roll up in a similarly intriguing fashion. When these walls are tucked away, jets of air blast down like a curtain to keep out insects and noise.Most remarkable, though, according to the building’s architect, Bill Peterson, is how similar the property looks to the brownstone that was built on the same lot nearly 140 years ago.“The basic approach for this project was to reinterpret this symbolic New York City building,” Mr. Peterson told The New York Sun. “We wanted to reinterpret key elements of the original design using modern, high-performance versions of the original materials.”That mean using brownstone from a Southwestern quarry made lighter by an aluminum honeycomb backing, adding a graffitiproof porcelain screen surrounding the front door, and, of course, installing the disappearing façade. The building, between Second and Third avenues, is in the final stages of construction and should be finished, Mr. Peterson said, in four to six weeks.The condominium contains a pair of two-bedroom triplexes sandwiching two one-bedrooms, and it is reportedly attracting attention from several crowds. Mr. Peterson said parents of New York University students looking to drop $1 million on their children’s college digs have already poked around the one-bedrooms. A broker for the Corcoran Group, Jim Farah, said he’s seen interest from Wall Street types, as well as “people with a design sensibility,” including other architects and designers.“It’s a rare thing to have a brownstone with a loft interior feel,” Mr. Farah said, pointing to the exposed brick on the interior walls and the simple white porcelain bathrooms.Inside, there is no mistaking the year for 2007. But outside, the building’s age is harder to guess. Mr. Peterson and his partner, Carol Swedlow, replicated the building’s front based on a tax photograph taken of the original building in 1940. He claims he hasn’t missed a detail.“If I’m going to do something with period style, it should be relevant,” Mr. Peterson, who was trained as a modernist, said. “I’m taking something about the true history of the building and reinterpreting it in a rigorous sort of way.“We seem to be in a period now where people are continuing to build glass boxes. In terms of new developments, a lot of them are modernist glass boxes,” he said. “With this I was interested in actually doing something that was clearly a modern project but not so obvious as another glass box.”The director of the urban design and architecture studies program at NYU, Mosette Broderick, sees Mr. Peterson as a lonely figure in New York’s design world.“Most architects are saying, ‘Make it part of your era, don’t replicate,'” she said. “But I like replication. We now have very few brownstones left. If somebody’s actually willing to bring it back on the outside, I’d give them kudos for that.”Ms. Broderick said Mr. Peterson appears to have done his homework: Brownstones were ubiquitous above 8th Street in the second half of the 19th century.“He’s basically submerging himself to fit in for the greater good of the block and this city, and I think that’s rather nice,” she said. “That’s the tradition of this city.”

An Architect Builds With an Eye Toward Past and Future

An Architect Builds With an Eye Toward Past and Future

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